from Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald,
Winger Reilly Smith and defenseman Torey Krug are still both unsigned. General manager Peter Chiarelli said he hoped they’d be in camp, but he would not comment on negotiations. And while that situation plays itself out, there’s the likelihood of a trade happening. Chiarelli all but said he’ll be moving one of his nine defensemen.
“I’ve always tried to get the team together signed and get them in place and give them a level of security. I always feel that with that, they will perform,” Chiarelli said between periods of a rookie tournament game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. “Of course, I’ve got to see the performance to get to that point. They’ve seen that we’ve tried to keep this team together as much as we can; we’ve had a lot of success with this group of guys.
“Around the fringes, guys have to go . . . I think they understand that we always want to ice a Cup-winning team, and with that comes some casualties. This year, I’m looking forward to it, to a certain degree; there’s a lot of competition, there’s a lot of spots, including — you don’t wish one of these (defensemen) to be traded, but we just have too many. At some point, I’m going to have to do it, and all the teams in the league, most of the teams in the league would like one.
“And I know everyone’s waiting, ‘What move will (he) make? What move will (he) make?’ Well, I have to see what’s going to happen, see who fits well with whom, but the uncertainty is something this year that is a byproduct of the cap and a successful team and locking up those guys, and eventually there’s other guys that are just going to get too expensive. I don’t cast any aspersions on them for being at that level, but that’s what it’s at.”
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